Discussion Topics for Today's Classroom

Russia, Facebook, the US election and when 126 million isn’t 126 million

As many as 126 million Americans may have seen content uploaded to Facebook by Russia-based operatives since 2015. That’s nearly half of the 270 million Americans who are old enough to be allowed a Facebook profile. The figure comes from the social network itself, which along with Google and Twitter, is preparing for a Senate hearing where it will explain Russia’s impact on the popular sites. But how many people have actually seen those posts?

1) “Facebook defines a post’s “reach” as those people who may have come across the content (text story/video/image/ad) in their News Feed.” Why would Facebook be most interested in telling what their “reach” is rather than views (the usual metric for an ad)?

2) “Facebook says those 80,000 posts were “seen directly” by 29 million people over a two-year period.” Again, why is Facebook telling the public about what they call “seen directly”, which is not a common metric in internet advertising.